Scott Peterson’s Death Penalty Sentence Thrown Out

The California Supreme Court just threw out the death penalty sentence for Scott Peterson. Peterson has been on death row for the 2002, Christmas Eve murder of his wife Laci and unborn son, Conner.

15 years ago Scott Peterson was accused of dumping his wife’s body from his fishing boat into the San Francisco Bay in 2002. Her corpse surfaced months later. He was arrested after massage therapist Amber Frey told police that she began dating Scott a month nearly, and he had told her his wife was dead.

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“Peterson contends his trial was flawed for multiple reasons, beginning with the unusual amount of pretrial publicity that surrounded the case.,” the court said. “We reject Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions for murder.”

However, the justices ruled that the trial judge “made a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson’s right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase.”

“While a court may dismiss a prospective juror as unqualified to sit on a capital case if the juror’s views on capital punishment would substantially impair his or her ability to follow the law, a juror may not be dismissed merely because he or she has expressed opposition to the death penalty as a general matter,” the justices said.